Unbearable Luminosity
by overstars
Summary: SG-11 returns bearing a virus that brings both death and a terrible, powerful gift especially for a few lost people, including a certain clone. Completed. Story 1 in the "Standard Candles" series.
1. The Tendency of Paths to Converge

"Unbearable Luminosity"  
By: overstars

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate SG-1 or any of the characters within. I do not intend to infringe upon any copyrights. I have made no financial or tangible gains from the writing or publication of this story on this site or any other site on which it may appear.

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1. The Tendency of Paths to Converge  
  
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-------  
  
It's kind of weird, to think a person could backslide this far. Jack O'Neill, as a teenager, lost in high school. The novelty lasted a week, but no longer than that.  
  
Because the physics class he walks into is so medieval compared to what was at the SGC. He knows the teacher is lying to him. The speed of light can't/won't be broken. and the people around him are really teenagers. Honest to god punk teenagers with no respect, no attention span, and precious little personal hygiene.  
  
And they're really shallow. Just like most adults. but at least got to choose his adult company, and by the time he got to be an officer, most of the idiots had been filtered out anyway.  
  
There's no filter between Jack and the stupid here in high school.  
  
Honestly, the hormones aren't a problem for Jack, at all. They say teenagers are hormonal, but really, they're just human beings doing what human beings do when you cram them together like sardines, tell them lies, and suppress them for large amounts of time.  
  
Yes, public education breeds an amazing amount of fuckheadedness.  
  
It takes the military months to filter it out into something resembling human. Hence basic training.  
  
It isn't like they don't have foresight. In fact, they've got enough foresight to know they're not seeing anything worth going forward to.  
  
Because their tomorrows looks a helluva lot like all their yesterdays. They run around doing pointless busywork. Because nobody wants to touch them.  
  
And honestly, they don't want to be touched either.  
  
So the novelty is gone and Jack hates where he is. Sure he made a big show of looking lustfully out the window of the truck for his older self, staring at teenage girls with a lecherous grin.  
  
He'd chase skirts if girls wore them anymore. Or at least skirts that don't include the prefix mini and looks like a truly demented version of what cheerleaders used to wear before they gave up the ghost on modesty.  
  
It horrifies Jack to think that this is where Charlie would be going if he were alive.  
  
Yeah. If he ever has kids again - maybe probably hopefully - they are so getting private schooled. Homeschooled even.  
  
Mostly, he misses SG-1. He watches the history channel and makes notes. He tapes the discovery channel. He reads an insane amount of mythology. He buys books about Egyptian mythology and underlines the name of the gods that he's killed.  
  
Jack the godkiller in high school. Tapping a pencil, waiting for lunch.  
  
He needs the Stargate again.  
  
He hates his other self, mostly because somewhere, another Jack is waxing wiseass and walking through the event horizon.  
  
While he, the cosmic leftovers of Jack O'Neill, malingers towards repetition, languishing in an overheated classroom, in a desk that wobbles because on of the legs is missing it's foot.  
  
Another Jack is saving the world.  
  
This one can only dream of it.  
  
--------  
  
They're trying to grow another Sam Carter.  
  
That's what Captain Hailey overheard Major Davis saying once on the phone, before she walked into his office.  
  
He's been kind to her here in Washington, showing her around. Right now she's doing exactly what Colonel Carter did, cooling her heels and puttering around doing theory. She likes the work well enough, but honestly, she wants to get on a team and through the Stargate.  
  
She's too blunt for politics and has none of Major Davis's finesse.  
  
The Pentagon wants to groom her, make her into their girl. Because, honestly, there's a great fear of Colonel Carter. More than Dr. Jackson, more than Teal'c. More than General O'Neill. They wield power, but their power is in known quantities. Dr. Jackson has ideas, Teal'c has skills, O'Neill has options.  
  
But Carter wields the sword of irrefutable science. There is no spin doctoring of physics. She has truth. She has the facts.  
  
It is also a mythology and a mystical practice they do not full comprehend, and therefore, cannot fully control.  
  
So should Colonel Carter and her wormhole physics type brilliance get out of control, there's Jennifer Hailey.  
  
Just as smart, but ten times easier to put on a leash. It's all about her simple character flaws. Tactlessness. Ambition. The fact that she wouldn't know how to act stoic if wrote it out in an equation for her. They can read her like she's a cheap harlequin novel, and they intend to manipulate the plot to their own ends.  
  
She doesn't know how to tell friend from foe here, because everyone smiles and says nice things. Jennifer takes it all at face value, assumes that she's some kind of star because everyone is so eager to get their fingers into her pie. She only knows how to take things at face value. She just can't read between the lines.  
  
But Major Davis can. And will.  
  
They might be able to grow another Sam Carter, but he'll be damned if they use someone like Jennifer Hailey to bring her down.  
  
--------  
  
There was a song on Earth he heard once, on some radio station that Colonel O'Neill labeled 'indie' (independent, coming from the fact that it was not sponsored by a major label or communications network). And a singer, who was marginally famous (Sarah McLachlin) played the piano (an large instrument played by padded, small hammers, striking taut strings each tuned to a different frequency) and she said something that stuck in his head.  
  
_"and i have the sense to recognize, that i don't know how to let you go"_  
  
And the Colonel turned the radio and an oldies station (referring to music that was created and performed prior to the 1980's), and Jonas really didn't think he'd been listening to the song.  
  
But the chord loops in his head.  
  
_i don't know how to let you go_  
  
And Jonas is singing to Earth.  
  
Because he can't live on Kelowna for much longer. He misses technology and wonder. He misses being foreign. He misses meteorology and bananas.  
  
He misses SG-1.

He should have kissed Sam, but instead was stupid and showed off Kyiana, and only got her sympathy when Kyiana turned out to be a Goa'uld.  
  
The real Kyiana is too slight and waspish for him. He liked her better when she was a Goa'uld.

But he'll keep that to himself.

--------  
  
The galaxy has never truly been at peace. And even while great old pantheon of the Four Races kept their wise, steady hands at the reigns, there was danger. There was evil.

They were not warriors by nature, any of them. They were inventors, healers, artists, philosophers. Thinkers. At best, they adapted the ways of war to themselves.

The Wraith could not be avoided. They _were_ warriors. They did not think, hypothesize, discuss. They bowed only to their own hunger.

There came a time, when the Ancients felt the Wraith closing in and knew that slowly, surely, they were going to be overrun. They'd thought about it enough to know.

They gathered one last time at Heliopolis. They feared not so much for their lives, as for their knowledge. They asked one last thing of their allies. They asked only that all they knew, all they'd done, all they'd created be saved.

So they built a library, a library with an ingenious lock on it.

Firstly, it's core knowledge would be unreadable by any computer that any race could devise. It would be encrypted to the code of the magnificent human brain. Still, if human could just stick their heads in and have the knowledge, even if it killed a lesser evolved being in doing so, then it wouldn't be such a good idea. Even a moment of useful knowledge could be a dangerous thing to a lesser race.  
  
So they divided the process of getting, keeping, and using the library into four stages, which required each of the races to get involved. A process which meant four races stood between the Wraith and domination of life as they knew it.  
  
The Ancients kept the Manus, the Hand of Knowledge. The physical library itself.  
  
The Asgard kept the only method of removing the knowledge from a person's brain.  
  
The Nox kept the way of reading the knowledge.  
  
The Furlings, the closest to the Ancient, kept something even more important. Something that they called The Priming Agent. It was the deadman's switch for the entire process. It was a virus that served dual purposes. Firstly, it was a deadly poison to the Wraith. It destroyed their make up at the cellular level. However, the virus was costly and time-consuming to manufacture, even for such an advanced race.

It's second and more hopeful purpose was to create in any lesser race a way of becoming something like an Ancient.

It restructured DNA of the victim while writing new neural pathways into their brain, doing it's best not to damage existing memories, knowledge, and abilities. Theoretically, and ideally, it would give a person abilities to go hand in hand with the knowledge, the abilities that the Ancients themselves possessed. Giving them they ability to heal, to affect other beings with touch, to use Ancient technology, to learn language, to become telepathic, telekinetic. As the Ancients are.

This way their civilization, their race, could be carried on, rebuilt whenever any race became advanced enough to travel through the Stargate, whether their evolution had progressed sufficiently or not to make them Ancients in and of themselves.

Only, the Priming Agent was meant to be contained, used on one person in a closed area. Because it is at best a questionable venture. Some lesser evolved forms of the Ancient race could not be affected at all. Of the lesser beings that the virus could manage to affect, most died. Very few that became infected had the strength to survive it intact. Those that did were sometimes left maimed.Still, there were those who would survive. Even some who might be able handle having some or all of the abilities that go with the knowledge of the Ancients.

The Furlings themselves were forced to flee when the Wraith cullings came to a peak.

They left everything behind. Fled into the darkness of other galaxies, never to return. They left the virus in the two galaxies they felt were most at risk. In tiny metal boxes, meant to release their toxin if taken through a Stargate or off a planet.

They fled. The Wraith came and all the boxes in what is now know as the Pegasus Galaxy were found. Hundreds of Wraith died, but to no avail. It was merely a weeding of their garden. They continued to flourish.

The Wraith slept. And the boxes in what is now known as the Milky Way Galaxy remained untouched.

--------  
  
Siler is a good guy. Everyone knows this. He's the walking definition of 'take one for the team'.  
  
He's taken hundreds for the team. Though, to be fair, the team has taken a few for him. For the Earth, really.  
  
Siler's got three kids and a wife. Two boys. Matt and Ryan. They cause trouble, get pimples, stay out late, and are thankfully damaging their dorm rooms, not the house. Then there's Amy. She gets better grades than her brothers ever did and doesn't cause trouble. Doesn't get into accidents like her dad.  
  
He's been getting in accidents his entire life.  
  
Early last month, they called from the SGC to let Nancy know that he wouldn't be home until tomorrow, due to electrical burns and a bruised rib.  
  
Nancy smiled, said thank you, and went back to eating spaghetti with her daughter.  
  
This is how it is. Even though Nancy smiled, Amy can tell dad got hurt.  
  
Once, when Amy was six, she got into trouble and broke a lamp. Actually her brother did, but they blamed it on her. Because she was the one trying to patch it up. And she got grounded from TV for the weekend and had to do an extra chore.  
  
She yelled at her dad, said she didn't like him anymore.  
  
The next day an engine block fell on him. He broke several ribs. Internal bleeding was involved. He could have died.  
  
Amy told herself it was God punishing her for being mean.  
  
So she always had to act good, or God would take her daddy away.  
  
She lives with that fear. It's a part of her life. To fear the secret nature of her dad's job. She knows he lies about what he does. Doing repairs on experimental aircraft can't possibly be that dangerous. He's been burned, cut, scraped, shot, electrocuted, and bruised too many times for anyone to buy it.How are they supposed to, when daddy comes home with bruises, breaks, burns, and blisters so much that their house is specially made for moving around in crutches and they have a system for handling dad when he's hurt?  
  
It still bothers Amy. But she's good at living with fear, it's her specialty. It's what makes her uniquely suited to life in the Siler family. She studies a lot and gets good grades, doesn't cause trouble, does chores, hasn't broken curfew yet. Her daddy is alive. So she thinks she's doing her job very well.

She's a good girl. Her daddy is alive. The system works.  
  
And dad is coming home tonight from work, and he'll get a whole three days off for stand down.  
  
If all goes well, he'll be uninjured. Amy studied extra hard, washed the dishes herself, and didn't pass notes in class. The system will work.  
  
With two hours 'til his extended weekend, Siler is watching the clock and his every step. He's relatively safe right now, fixing a broken valve on the spinners in the gate room when SG-11 walks in from a routine meet 'n greet.  
  
"Hey Siler!" says one of them.  
  
"Hey there, Dr. Chisholm. Anything interesting?"  
  
"We found a Furling settlement. Brought back a rubix cube."

None of them has noticed that inside of it's box, the cube has expanded slightly and even as they stand around exchanging pleasantries on a late afternoon return from a mission that it is leaking virus into the gateroom. Into the air they breathe.  
  
"Does it have any moving parts?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Just don't get it near me. I'm off in two hours."  
  
SG-11 claps. It's a long standing running joke about just how often Siler gets hurt on the job. He's going for a world record, six weeks without a scratch.  
  
"So, Sargeant, how long has it been since your last injury?"  
  
"Six weeks. Knock on naquadah."  
  
Siler taps his wrench on the Stargate as he gets back on ladder to fix the spinner. SG-11 walks off talking of Furlings and how Dr. Jackson is quite possibly going to have an orgasm and they definitely want a piece of the mission, but someone is going to have to bravely approach General O'Neill and somehow, someway, make him pay attention long enough to approve the mission. Chisholm suggests letting that be Dr. Jackson's problem.

Siler laughs, concentrates on the spinners. He goes home two hours later. Amy and his wife greet him. They eat dinner together and rent a movie which is some chick flick, but hey, he lives with two chicks and the movie has sex. Life is nice and cozy. He falls asleep during the movie.

Three hours later, all of SG-11 is in the infirmary.

Sometime, around four in the morning, Amy Siler's eyes shoot open and she feels the nausea wash over her body in a sick wave of sweat. She isn't even fully awake as she scrambles for the toilet, hunches over and proceeds to be sicker than she has ever been.  
  
Six hours later, the base is quarantined and the source of the illnesses is determined to be the artifact that SG-11 brought back.  
  
Siler and his wife are fine.  
  
Amy's fever is 104.5, she's piled under blankets. Her words are slurred and she can't stand up right. But she hasn't fallen unconscious yet.

Siler get the call from the base just around noon.

A team from the SGC comes to Siler's house and Dr. Carmichael looks Amy over. She's definitely got the virus. Her eyes are dilated, her temperature fluctuating back and forth, flu-like symptoms.

Siler tells her not to be afraid when they put her in the box, to carry her out of the house, and the men around her are all in hazmat suits.

She nods and says she understands. Only the moment they pick her body up, she screams. She claws at the inside of the box, sobs, tells her daddy that she's been a good girl.

They do not let her out the entire way to the mountain. She doesn't see her father again for the next four hours.  
  
They lock her in a room with other sick people. Only doctors in hazmat suits are allowed in.  
  
Three days later, Amy is still awake, when most other victims have gone comatose. This in itself is a miracle. Dr. Carmichael is hoping, praying, theorizing that perhaps Amy might be able to pull through with some kind of antibody.

That she alone, through some miracle of her immune system, can stem the tide of infection that has swept the base.

In all, there are 58 victims. 45 of them are SGC personnel. 13 are civilians.  
  
On the seventh day, while Amy is still conscious – and she's the last one left conscious - Siler climbs into a hazmat suit and goes to sit with his daughter. They say that with her symptoms, she's got maybe six to eight more hours before she goes under.  
  
Amy curls up in her bed and opens her eyes. Through the plastic mask she sees her dad. She looks around. She sees faces in the window.

She doesn't know why, but she can hear them, even when they aren't talking. It buzzes in her head, constantly, like being in a crowded room and unable to hear anything specific, only the wisp wisp wisp of other people.

"She's the only one left, General," says the doctor, staring down at her. His hands are in his pockets. She knows him well. Dr. Carmichael. _"Please, just let her beat this. I only need one. Just one."_

"How?" asks the nice blonde woman. _She's just a kid. God, Lieutenant Smith had a kid her age. This virus doesn't make sense. Janet could crack this, Janet would know. I miss Janet._

"Honestly, this beyond the edge of what I understand. Her body seems to able to tolerate some of the proteins," Carmichael answers.

"What are her chances?" asks General O'Neill. He came to see her once when he saw all the other sick people. Most of them were asleep. _God, if there is a God, if there's anything like a God, Oma Desala, something, don't let this kid die. Don't let him lose his daughter, not here, not like this. He's a good man. Fight it, Amy, fight this son of a bitch virus. Please God let her hold out._

Carmichael tells him, "I honestly can't say. She can tolerate some of the proteins, but her body is breaking down, all the same. If she makes it another week, it'll be a miracle."

Another man standing next to General O'Neill says, "I studied the artifact for three hours. It didn't infect me."

She may or may not know this man, maybe she met him once. He doesn't seem like a stranger. He's brighter than everyone else. There's a little more light around him. She can see him better. She knows him, she saw him once, somewhere. Somewhere.

"Luck of the draw," says blonde woman.

"Some luck," General O'Neill says. _God I hate my job. Hate it hate it hate it hate it. Goa'uld and stupid viruses coming through the Stargate. And god it doesn't end ever. How did Hammond do this?_

Then things flash in his mind. She sees snakes, she sees men with glowing eyes, she sees a beautiful ring, with shining water rippling in the middle. The words make sense. The snake and glowing eyes, that's Goa'uld. The ring, that's the Stargate.

She has to hold these words. She has to tell someone.

"There's something in the mountain, daddy, something in the mountain," she tells him, knowing she can't reach out and grab him even though she wants to touch another human being that isn't wearing plastic.

Daddy says, "Shh, it's okay sweetie, there's nothing in the mountain. You're gonna be okay."

"No, no. Their eyes, daddy, their eyes. Glowing eyes, don't let them get in your head, that's what they do, get in your head. And then the tall ones, they come and they take your soul. They come from the other side of the water. It's so big and shiny you just go through it, it's easy, I know it is. Daddy, there's something in the mountain, it's here in the mountain. The water and you can go through it, but only one way. You have to get out of here, we have to go. It's here in the mountain."

Through the glass, the blonde woman says, "Did she just say what I thought she said?"

General O'Neill doesn't move his mouth, but he still says, _Crap._

Her dad goes away. His voice gets loud, echoes up into the glass.

"I didn't say anything, swear to god, sir," her dad tells them.

"She probably doesn't understand what she's saying," Dr. Carmichael says.

"How is that any better?" asks General O'Neill. _How? How did this go so so so badly. It was a routine meet 'n greet. This can't get any worse, swear to god, it can't._

Behind the glass they get louder and louder. Thinking so many thoughts and the loudest is the man that's bright and she can't remember why she knows him.

"He's brighter, brighter than everyone else. It's like the light's on all the time. Where do I know him from?" she asks her father.

"Who, sweetie?" her father asks, but he isn't anywhere she can see.

"The bright man. He's so loud, can't you hear him? He won't be quiet, he keeps buzzing. I know him from somewhere. Listen, listen, listen, it's here in the mountain, daddy. Can't you feel it? I can feel it. It's in the mountain."

"Shh, it's okay. What's in the mountain?"

Amy leans her head back, her body starts to tremble a little, but then a wave of coolness washes over her. It feels good, to have relief from the heat. She closes her eyes and squirms just a little, to adjust to all the new coolness and looseness in her body. She keeps talking but it's not her mouth. Or her words. Or anything that belongs to her.

She listens and is just as surprised as everyone else when she starts speaking. Because it's not English. She understands it and doesn't. It sort of fluctuates in her mind, like reading lots of big words together, she has to go slow to make it work.

"She's speaking Ancient, Jack," says the bright man.

"What the hell's she saying?"

"It was in that place, maybe – I don't know that word – when it came time for them to chose. There were those who loved this plane – surface – level – something – and those who were weary. The weary made their arguments in the Place of Great Power – Vis Uban - for three days. Many followed them. Those who would not leave with the Weary Ones could only weep, because they loved this plane and were not prepared to abandon it to darkness. And so the Weary Ones left this plane and all that loved it to their fate."

Amy felt her body relax, she laid her hands on her chest and breathed out.

"I'm tired, daddy, it's time to go, we have to go."

Then she sleeps, like the rest of them.  
  
Eventually, they start dying. The first one dies an hour after Amy sleeps.  
  
One by one they all drop.  
  
Four days later, only ten are left.  
  
By the end of the next week, only Amy is left. Improbable and hanging on. She is in a dark place, where there are only strange voices and mechanical noises.

They're beginning to get on with the business of saving the world and exploring the galaxy. There are no more vigils over her. Only Siler's closest friends even bother stop by. Most people just ask and news disseminates. Fans out to tell everyone that Amy is just circling the toilet bowl. Any day now, it'll be all over.

Siler is the object of pity. Whispers and down-eyed look follow him like the water churned up in the wake of a big ship.

Then, in the middle of some silent night, while Amy is supposed to be waiting to die, she doesn't. She does the opposite. She emerges from the darkness into the dimness of the nighttime infirmary.

It doesn't take her long to figure out that she can't speak. Can't even make noises. Her vocal cords do not move. Amy needs to speak with someone, needs to find her dad. So she rolls out of the bed. The machines that are tethered to her follow her to the floor with crashes and thuds. They buzz and beep to let someone know there's been an accident.

Amy lays on the concrete floor and waits, knowing eventually, Dr. Carmichael and his army of nurses will come.  
  
By morning only the IV in her. She sits up and eats the first breakfast she's eaten in two weeks. Her parents and her brother are glued to her side.

Once, General O'Neill even comes. They have a long serious talk. Well, he has a long serious talk. Amy has a long, serious listen. But somehow, they nod, shake, gesture, and awkwardly stare their way into an understanding that Amy doesn't remember anything from when she was sick and that if she does, even if it seems strange or unreal, that she needs to tell her father immediately.  
  
The doctor warns she may have experienced something close to a stroke, that she may regain full speech or never speak again, or something in between. He speaks in doctor-language, and tries to fool her into optimism.

She knows she will never speak again. Amy does not fool herself, lying in the bed in the infirmary, scribbling down her words, into believing that there is hope.

There isn't. She knows this. She isn't precisely sure where the certainty comes from, but it's there. It's real.

This is how her life will be from now on. Whether that's a bad thing, a good thing, or just a different thing, she doesn't know. Maybe she used to talk too much. Maybe she'll be one of those inspirational stories where some person starts a charity and does the whole walk-a-thon thing and raises money. And hey, it's not a bad life. It's a life.

After the last couple of weeks that Amy has had, life, any life, is a good thing.  
  
It's not optimism, but it's something. It makes the world fit into her head and work when she tries to speak, forgetting sometimes she can't. When she has to clap, whistle, jump to get people's attention. When she has to totally relearn communication with everyone.

Or, when she's in a new school, in special classes with retarded kids that drool and sometimes throw things. Where she and the special teacher try to learn sign language and hear each other when the one kid named Precious starts to scream and cry and have a fit.

--------  
  
Jack opens his door and there stands SG-1 and Siler.  
  
Siler is almost about cry when he tells Jack what's happened to his daughter.

Of course, Jack jumps off the couch and hugs the guy. He's lost a kid, and to see Siler like that, pale and more scared than he was the time when a DHD blew up in his face, that kind of shakes Jack.

Siler sits down and asks him to help Amy at the new school and make sure people don't pick on her, to be her friend.

But more importantly, Sam impresses on him the need to watch her. She said some things while she was sick that made them think she knows, somehow, about the Goa'uld and the Stargate. And since Jack already knows and he's already there, could he just add that to his to-do list.  
  
It's not the Stargate, it's not a mission, but Jack will take it.  
  
It's something. It's a purpose.  
  
It's good to be the hero again. Even if it's probably going to turn out to be a big nothing. But hey, being an almost-hero is better than being a definite nothing.


	2. The Inexorable Effects of Gravity

**2. The Inexorable Effects of Gravity**

* * *

Her dad said that Jack was the son of a friend, that he went to her school and that she could get rides home with him. Of course, the entire scenario rests on the assumption that Jack is just that nice of a guy with nothing better to do. Amy knows it's a setup. That somehow her dad has contrived this little thing.

At first, she's reluctant. It's the shame of it. To think her dad has paid or begged or somehow threatened this guy into being nice to her. That she's no longer capable of having friends on her own merits.

He tries to be nice, he says 'hi' whenever he sees her, even sometimes walks with her. He offers rides. She turns down his kindness. Doesn't take rides from him. She braves the horrifying school bus, with the other kids who don't understand her and only know she's "special". Sometimes they ask her questions, she can't answer. They think she's deaf. Just as well, it isn't like she wants to hear them anyway. They throw things at her sometimes or trip her in the aisle. Because they can.

Then one day, one of the special-ed kids throws paint on her favorite shirt and she's so involved trying to wash out the paint in the bathroom that she misses her bus. She doesn't know what to do. She still has her cellphone, but it's about as useful as submarine with a screen door at this point in her life.

She figures she can walk it. Only, she didn't notice it raining outside. A big, fat, freezing rain that was supposed to be snow, but it heated up just enough to be water.

Amy pulls her hood up, starts walking. It doesn't take long to get soaked to the bone and start shaking.

Then a big black truck pulls up next to her. A window rolls down and there's Jack.

"Hey, Amy," he calls to her, a smile on his face. "Hop in."

Amy looks around. It's just cold enough to make her think underhanded little thoughts like _what the hell _and _it's a lot warmer in there,_ and_ he could keep going if he wanted, maybe he does at least really feel sorry for me. _

She's a straight-A student sitting in special ed, she's lost the ability to speak, and hey if people want to take care of her and give her things like pity and free rides, she might as well let them.

Amy lets Jack take her home that day. And the next day. And the day after that.

Then that's when Jack gets interesting. He listens to old people music and for some reason, seems a little more interested in being nice to her than he should be even for someone who's probably getting something out of the whole deal. He makes it a point to pick her up like clockwork. He asks about her day and reads what she writes at the stoplights, puts the paper on the wheel and holds it there with his thumb like the clip on a clipboard

Everything he does, he does like he knows what he's doing. He drives and maneuvers in between cars in traffic like he's been doing it his whole life. Even his little gestures, all look like he's an old hand at something. Life, maybe. He's comfortable. That's the best way to put it. He's comfortable and well worn and broken in.

It takes maybe two weeks before it's her new routine. And maybe Jack's being paid, but there's something about him. He's funny, he's not like anyone else, he talks like he's seen things, been places, met people.

Like he's got more to say, but isn't saying it, can't say it. She understands that.

Eventually, she even gets permission to stay at Jack's house so she doesn't have to be home alone until her parents – usually mom, because dad keeps the screwiest hours – get home.

She's never seen or heard Jack's parents anywhere. His apartment looks like he's the only one who lives there. But she doesn't ask, because it's enough that she gets to come there and hang out and feel semi-normal.

It's not her old life, but Amy runs with it.  
  
And in a while, she finds that the days have settled down. Life is regular as the tide again.  
  
The teacher's aide brings her the work from the regular teachers and then they work on it, all the while trying to teach her sign language as a by-product of their efforts. She signs her answers and the teacher's aide writes them down.

Amy wonders if they think she's actually doing her own work anymore.  
  
She's getting good at ASL, but nobody she cares to communicate with is. Her dad's really making an effort. Her mom, for the most part, relies on the notepad that's around Amy's neck. Every day that he's home, poor determined dad sits down and tries to learn the new signs for the day.  
  
So far he can tell Amy hello and that is name is Dave and when he really works at it he can tell her that he wants eggs, bread, the telephone. Although, to his credit, he's kind of fascinated with the TTY phone in their house and knows how to use it. But that's because it's a mechanical thing and that's what dad does all day.  
  
All of which makes it even more frustrating because Amy is pretty much fluent in sign language. She's not sure when it happened, but now when the sign language interpreter comes, all she has to learn is the sign for a word. She knows how to use it. How to stand backwards to show past tense, how get the mood and subtext of her meaning across.  
  
She doesn't remember anyone teaching her that either. It just sort of sprouted in her brain, like an unknown weed.  
  
Still, it doesn't help to know a language nobody knows.  
  
Hence her mother being practical and buying her a notepad that can hang around her neck.

So that's the rhythm of life. School, Jack, home. It's a nice rhythm. Kinda upbeat, really.  
  
Just when Amy starts getting really comfortable with her new normalcy, she starts dreaming the dreams again. Dreams that are like the things she saw when she had the fever, when she spoke in tangled sentences and tried to tell her dad about what was in the mountain and water that could take you away.  
  
This time, though, there's no fever and neural break down to cloud her visions. They're clear like purified water, like brand new glass.

Her dreams, truly, are like movies. They have very little to do with her. They're there in her brain and she's the audience and it plays out before her like some indie sci-fi flick.  
  
Amy thinks she can deal, if they're only dreams. Besides, they're not really disturbing. In the day, they leave her alone. So hey, she watches movies in her brain at night. She gets her 8-hours, she wakes up rested and refreshed.

And life goes on. School, Jack, Home. Like the thud, thud, thud of a resting heartbeat.

Still, Amy's beginning to get the feeling that something is impending. Something is waiting, there's another weed in her brain that hasn't sprouted all the way. It's an overall mood that the world takes. She gets out of school and somehow, she feels like she might not have to go back.

Every day suddenly is a lot like Friday even when it's not.

Then it is Friday, a couple of weeks after the dreams start.

Jack comes to get her in his truck after school. And they're riding along when Amy gets a flash of the dream she had the night before.  
  
It's like reality shorts out.  
  
Jack is talking and he doesn't notice Amy, because he's really on about something. Something about an English assignment he really needs Amy's help on.  
  
Then it feels like someone is stabbing her behind the eyes. She grabs her head and the world spins. It's all coming back, a movie on fast forward with fast, high voices spiraling, spiraling towards the end.

The city under attack and the horrible monsters with teeth – Wraith they're Wraith that's their name – putting their hands to the people, sucking years off their life, they die old men at twenty and nothing can stop them. The bright round doors of water, and the brightness of those who left. They're asleep, but won't stay asleep. Sharp teeth like they have braces that are too big when they close their mouths and they speak of hunger.  
  
The nausea makes her sweat. She can't look out the window for fear of the motion making her sicker.  
  
She reaches over and grabs Jack.  
  
"Huh?" he says, looking over.  
  
And Amy beats on the dashboard.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Amy is still grabbing her head, rocking, breathing funny, and she shakes her head no.  
  
So he pulls over and the minute the truck is stopped, Amy darts out of the car and barely makes it to the first tree she sees before she gets sick.  
  
Eventually she can't even stand and she drops to her knees.  
  
She gags until there's nothing left.  
  
And even then she keeps gagging.  
  
Jack holds her hair and rubs her shoulder.  
  
"It's okay, just take deep breaths. I'm gonna take you to the base, this is gonna be alright. Just take deep breaths."  
  
He says it in a way that she's never heard before. Not in the hopeless-doctor lost-dad kind of way, the way that makes her know that if she does live it's a miracle. He says it like it's true.  
  
So for a moment, she believes. It's hard not to. That's just how Jack is. He's got some kind of personal gravity that she can't help getting caught up in.  
  
Then finally, the wave passes. She staggers to her feet and Jack helps her into the truck.  
  
Jack keeps looking over at her, checking. Amy feels like she's coming unraveled, slowly, like the loose thread in a sweater. Getting pulled away from everything.

The rumble of the car puts her to sleep. She can still see the movie in her head, but it's fading. It's like someone's injected a massive dose of pain pills – like the kind dad always has – right into her.

The car rumbles, Jack talks. Rumble, mumble, whisper.

ItsokayjustbreathewerealmostthereAmystaywithmeAmystaywithme.

Rumble, rumble, Jack, whisper, whisper.

Sleep.

--------

Sam is the first that comes to Jack while he waits to see what the doctors say about Amy. After Amy got sick, she slept in his truck. He kept talking to her, even though he was pretty sure she was unconscious.  
  
He couldn't wake her up when they got to the base. A medical team had to come and get her. Jack heard Siler being paged. And Siler was confused when he got to the infirmary – because he wasn't hurt - until he saw Jack.  
  
Then he put it all together.  
  
Before Jack could explain, apologize, stutter, or speak, Dr. Carmichael grabbed Siler and took him somewhere.  
  
So Jack is in the waiting area. None of SG-1 even knows he's here, but Sam eventually wanders by.  
  
She sits down next to Jack and for a long time, they say nothing.  
  
"What happened?" she asks.  
  
"She was in my truck, suddenly she started grabbing her head, I pulled over, she got sick, we came here, she wouldn't wake up, and now I'm talking to you."  
  
"And you're sticking around to see how she is?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"You like her?"  
  
"She's seventeen, Carter."  
  
"I know, but so are you."  
  
"She's a good kid, but she's a _kid_."  
  
"Oh, a good kid."  
  
"Yes, Carter. And I hate to see this happen to her. Amy's been through enough."  
  
"Amy?"  
  
"What else am I supposed to call her?"  
  
Carter is smiling too much for Jack to think it's over. She walks away anyway. How was it he never noticed that about her? All these years and he never knew what a know-it-all Carter was. Okay, he did know, but he didn't think that she could be so smug about it.

The things you don't notice until you're a sixteen-year-old clone.  
  
An hour later Siler comes out and says that Amy's EEG, PET, and CT scans show some abnormalities, and they're going to keep her for a few days.  
  
Siler tries to tell Jack to go home. Poor guy even offers gas money, because he's just so grateful Jack is taking care of her, that she's got something like a friend and that maybe she was beginning to get something like a life back.

So what if he arranged for his mute daughter's new best friend to be the teenage clone of his former boss. It worked. Because Amy's a good kid and Jack's got a mission.

The idea of accepting a dollar for all of it, really, really burns at Jack. Hurts, even. He refuses to take the money.  
  
He refuses to leave. His otherself has to march down there, stand over him, and tell him things involving national security and Amy's well being to make him leave.

--------

All the time that Amy's at the mountain, being examined by doctors and neurologists, she has flashes of things. Not like the world-stopping vision she'd had in Jack's truck, but more like gently tuning out reality for a moment to remember something pleasant.  
  
She tunes out a lot at the mountain.  
  
She's remembering - or seeing rather, because she hasn't seen it before and therefore can't remember it - a large stone ring with electric water in the middle that's neither electricity nor water.  
  
Slowly things come to her.  
  
But the big revelation is when she puts the stone ring and the word 'stargate' together in a coherent thought. When she figures out what's going on.  
  
The name stargate gives it all away. Somehow this stone ring takes people somewhere involving stars. Probably other planets. It explains why they took her to the base infirmary as opposed to a hospital. The virus that nearly killed her was alien.  
  
It all becomes so clear.  
  
The sickness, her dad's injuries, the weird stories on the news, the very strange conversation with General O'Neill about remembering things. This is it, this is what she wasn't supposed to remember.

The Stargate.  
  
Even as the crest of discovery and accomplishment rises, it crashes.  
  
The other shoe, the fact that the military and the government have kept this secret, drops down like a two ton anvil.  
  
She knows something she is never supposed to find out. The most powerful government on Earth is obviously determined to keep it a close secret. Maybe other governments are involved.

Right about now, she should be calling her dad, telling him that she knows. She promised General O'Neill that she would.

Then, for no reason, she thinks about Jack. About the fact that her life will no longer be school, Jack, home if she tells. School sucks, home is awkward at the best of times, but Jack isn't.

The idea of life without Jack is kind of empty. Because he's pretty much all she's got left, friend-wise. He's the only person who knows how to listen, now that Amy's got so much to say.

Amy curls up underneath the blankets and asks herself the question. Can she keep the secret? She lays there and stares at the wall and realizes that it's not that hard. She can lay there and not tell anyone and hey, it isn't like she's going to blurt the secret on the news – she can't – so not a problem.

Okay, well, now she has secrets. And secrets can't be as bad as dealing with the loss of her school, her friends, her voice, and her life.

Besides, she kind of has the right to keep any secret she wants. What's happened to her, it's their fault. She's not sure how or why, but if they hadn't been doing what they were doing, she wouldn't have gotten sick.

She'd be at home doing homework, she'd be with Lacey, Jessica, and Sarah at the mall, she'd be on the telephone, maybe a party tonight.

They took her voice and her life and so she's going to take their secret. It's nowhere near fair, but hey, Amy's over the whole "not fair" thing.

Knowing she's going to be spending her entire weekend in the mountain, she curls up and she sleeps, and dreams of Egyptian pyramids. She dreams of deserts. She dreams of snakes that crawl inside of people and talk with their voices. and always, there is the Stargate. She dreams of a bright city, emerging from the sea. She dreams of the dead rising to become bright lights.

Eventually, all her scans come back normal. So Sunday morning they let her go. The nice blonde lady, who's a colonel (which is kind of impressive, because Amy didn't think there were any women colonels anywhere) comes and talks to her for a few moments.

Tells her that Jack didn't leave until Saturday afternoon.

Amy smiles at her. It makes her feel very, very warm. Maybe she's not Jack's chore anymore. Maybe she's his friend.  
  
When Amy finally goes home, the dreams keep coming. It begins to frighten her. She's dreamt of the Stargate for several nights. Each morning she wakes up feeling less and less connected to the world. She feels lost.  
  
She drifts through her days, and wants to scream because nobody notices it. Her parents don't even suspect that there's something different. She doesn't try to write or sign much anymore, and there doesn't seem to be anyone who pays attention to her moods now that she can't talk about it.  
  
Except Jack. He's starting to notice. He's said something. She shrugged and merely wrote that she was still feeling a little tired.  
  
Amy wants to hug Jack for not buying it, for looking her in the eye and paying attention. Most people who try to talk to her end up having entire conversations with themselves, because she's not there to stop them and make them listen to her voice. But with Jack, sometimes, he doesn't speak for minutes at a time, because he's reading or watching her sign.

He actually treats her like she's part of the conversation. Which is why he knows her little excuses are such crap. But, he's Jack, and he's cool enough to let it go and get out the chess board and asking her to do his English homework, because he just doesn't get Shakespeare and she does. He does her math, because it's only fair and he likes it better.  
  
If Amy didn't fear what the government would do, she'd tell Jack about the Stargate. Just to hear what he'd say. Maybe just to see if she could goad him into the use of the word "honkin'". That's Jack's word. Honkin'. Big honkin' Stargate.

Yeah, she definitely wants to hug Jack.

She's also starting to feel the need to find the Stargate. And go through it. It itches, like a nearly-gone rash. Small enough so that she can ignore it, but she's never really at peace.

Any down time in her day, waiting in a line at lunch, the five minutes before the bell rings, moments when she's not focused are all spent thinking about the Stargate.  
  
Then, one night, when the winter has finally settled in, Amy dreams of the stargate and a dialing pedestal next to it. Only, she dreams of it in detail. She touches all the crystals and somehow, it all fits together in her brain. She understands what the crystals are for and how they work. It fits like puzzle pieces and round pegs in round holes and a really great pair of jeans.

It's knowledge she doesn't even have to try for. Because it's like language, like walking, like tying her shoes.  
  
She understands how the Stargate works.  
  
She understands the event horizons and the wormholes the stargate creates. She understands the symbols. They're stars, keys to plotting a course to another planet. Six stars will take you there, and the seventh will tell the stargate where you've come from. Point of origin. Plot points. Everything is grid, a lattice, a matrix in her head.  
  
A woman with strange tangles for hair and a ratty patchwork looking dress, with a pale, kind face appears before the Stargate and curls her fingers in a come hither motion.  
  
In her dream, Amy talks to the woman. In her dream, she still has her voice.  
  
It's disturbing enough to wake her up.  
  
She wakes up sobbing, because in her dream she had a voice. It hurts for a moment, to remember her own voice.  
  
She sobs for a long time, hating how quiet she is, that even if she wanted to try, she couldn't scream or sing or speak. Even her crying is just breathy sounds. She never realized how much she used her voice. She tries, she opens her mouth wide and tries to force air through, but nothing happens.

Finally she gives up and lays diagonally with her feet on the pillows, and sobs. Contemplates ending it all.  
  
Death isn't what she wants. It's too frightening, the thought of being permanently lost.  
  
What she wants is to scream, and go through the Stargate.  
  
She sleeps again and the woman that she talked to in her first dream appears.  
  
Shapes light up on the round podium and the woman says to her, "Follow me. Remember the stars and follow me."  
  
She goes through the event horizon that ripples like the surface of a lake and then it dries up.  
  
Amy remembers the stars. She even writes them down.  
  
The rest of the night she spends trying to decide who to tell. She knows that even if she did tell her dad, he'd only turn the information over to the government, over to General O'Neill. Who would probably just talk at her for a long time and she's probably be sworn to secrecy.

And of course, the big punishment of No Jack. No chess games, no doing laundry in his basement, perched on the dryer, tapping him with a broom every time he recited Shakespeare wrong.

It wasn't like they'd say "okay, you can go through the Stargate. Be our guest."

Under no circumstances would her dad let his daughter, his "disabled" daughter, go to another planet.  
  
Especially since Amy thinks she wouldn't be coming back.  
  
So it's time to tell Jack, and hope that he can understand.

--------Lately, Amy's been a lot more confident, more distracted. Maybe even happy. Although Jack can't quite tell. It's a lot of little things that are starting to add up. She's sitting up straight – Amy is queen of the slouch - she's looking at things with narrowed, evaluating eyes.  
  
Something's gotten into her.  
  
So when they're on their daily drive back to his place, with snow coming down around them and Jack driving very slow, he asks her.  
  
"So, anything new?"  
  
Amy nods, and smiles at him.  
  
"What, is there a guy?" Jack asks and makes himself not pay attention to the hundreds of bad feelings that happen when he thinks about Amy with another guy. A teenage guy. So he thinks of other things that are happy making. Less queasy happy things. "You make an a? Win a contest? Get some money? Come on, spill," he urges.  
  
Amy just keeps smiling mysteriously.  
  
"Tell you what, we'll play chess. Winner spills all."  
  
She agrees with a nod and a smile. Jack drives against a battering of snow and once they're in his apartment, they get out the chess board. Only, before Jack can make the first move, Amy stops him. She goes to get a folder out of her backpack and gives it to him.  
  
Jack opens it and the first thing he sees is a Stargate address. His eyes go wide. His heart skips one, two, three beats. His head is on his neck, nodding like a bobble doll's head. And if the floor weren't concrete, his chin would be in the basement because that's just how wide open his mouth is.  
  
"Where did you get this? Who told you?" he asks, closing the folder.  
  
Amy opens the notepad from around her neck and writes: **you know what they are?**  
  
For a moment Jack looks like he's debating. "Maybe. Tell me where you got them."  
  
She scribbles quickly. **DON'T tell anyone. I dreamed it. **

Jack opens the folder again and she waits while he browses through. There are five pages worth of 7 and 8 coordinate stargate addresses, and piece of paper that's folded four times just so it will fit in the folder, he sees plans for a stargate.  
  
"Your dreams told you how to make a Stargate?"  
  
**How did you know?**  
  
Jack looks away for a second, because he can't make this decision staring Amy in the face.

He's still Jack. Maybe he's a teenager, maybe his entire life is gone, but he's still Jack. And he still knows the score. He should call the SGC, Siler, maybe even his other-self and report this. If she knows, if she's going around toting information that you normally need the Security Clearance of God to see, then somebody needs to be told.

Because so many things could go so horrible, terribly, unfortunately wrong.

Only, he looks up at her and some little thought in his brain undoes all his cautious military thinking. _Hey, things have already gone wrong. You're a teenager and she's got no voice._

"Who else were you planning on showing this to?" asks Jack.

**Just you.**

"Why me?"

**You listen to me. How do YOU know?**

"I just know, okay?"

Amy doesn't have to write anything down for Jack to know that it's not okay.

"It's a long story. If you know so much about the Stargate, then you know why it has to be a secret. Why didn't you tell someone at the base about all this, about what you've been seeing? This could really help them, you know."

Amy throws down her pencil and gets in his face and takes his jacket in her hands and shakes him and when he's gotten her arms immobilized because her wrists are locked in his hands, she mouths 'They. Won't. Listen."

"What?"

Amy shakes her head and tugs her wrists away. Jack lets her go. She grabs her pencil from the floor and scribbles, in frantic fast words. **They won't listen. They won't let me help. I have to do this. They won't let me. THEY WON'T LISTEN. YOU WILL.**

"Okay, so I listen, then what?"

**Help me.**

"Help you?"

**I need the Stargate. **

"Woah! Back up. You want to go through the Stargate? There's no way in hell your dad, let alone the _air force_ would even consider it. Ever. No way. It's impossible. Cannot be done."  
  
**Build our own.**  
  
Jack starts coughing. Nothing is going down the right tube, because all the air is being sucked out and his head is full of helium and wow, did she just write that?  
  
"You realize that these things were built by an advanced race a long long time ago, right? We still don't fully understand it and the brightest minds on earth have been dissecting it for almost a decade. And you think we can just _build_ one. Out of _what_? My toaster oven?"  
  
**Other things. Not nakwada. I can do it.**  
  
"You misspelled naquadah, by the way. And where are we going to get 'other things'? Some of these addresses you're using have eight coordinates. That takes so much more power, I mean, the SGC can't even do it. There's no way _we_ can do this. This is nuts, this is insane. Like I said, it's impossible. There's no way to make this work."  
  
**I have to do this.**  
  
"Why do you have to go through the Stargate? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is? Because trust me, I know how dangerous it can be. Really."

**How?**

Jack sighs. So much for planetary security and classified information. Yeah, somehow, someway, this conversation's gone to pot. Amy's managed to drag everything out of him except his life story, and he still has no idea what she wants or why.

"Because the Stargate is the reason I'm like this. You know why you don't see any parents around here? I don't have any. I'm not sixteen. I'm almost fifty. I'm not what I look like. About a year ago, an alien, from a race called the Asgard – that's an even longer story – decided to clone me and copy my entire consciousness into a clone body. Only, he screwed the pooch and instead of being a copy of myself, I ended up with the body of a fifteen year old. So here I am, with no life, no job, stuck in high school, and all because of the Stargate, okay? So you think losing your voice was bad. People have _died_ because of the Stargate, all right. Died. On a regular basis. It's dangerous out there. We have enemies. Enemies with big honkin' ships that want to take over your brain and your planet and for the love of god, believe me when I say, I know that what you're asking is impossible."

**Who did you used to be?**

"I used to be Colonel Jack O'Neill."

Amy narrows her eyes. **General O'Neill?**

"Yeah, well, the other guy got promoted. Me, I'm still Jack O'Neil with one 'L' and two years 'til graduation."

Amy stares at him, really, really stares like she's trying to see the old guy in his face.

"I'll start to look a lot more like him when I get about twenty and grow a mullet," he assures her, sitting on the arm of the couch.

Amy still stares, but she looks hurt on his behalf. Her whole face is soft and round. Round, sad eyes, round sad mouth. She, perhaps more than anyone else, understands the loss of self.

She starts to write, slowly.

**I need this. Have to find who made the virus.**

Jack stares at the words on the little piece of light blue paper. He holds the notebook that's around her neck. Contemplates the weight of it, the weight of everything. She stands there and waits, lets him hold the notebook and seems so patient with him.  
  
"You think they can give you your voice back, don't you?"  
  
She nods softly, like maybe she hadn't wanted to confess that at all. Jack cocks his head and looks very deep at her like maybe she's a clone of someone he used to know. All he sees is soft-eyed Amy, who knows his pain and plays chess with him. "You really think you can do this?"  
  
Again, she nods. He looks down at the folder, staring at the gate addresses and the pencil drawn plans for a stargate. Lists of materials they need.

"What about your family, Amy?"

Amy turns her head a little and takes in a hard breath. **I need this. They don't need me anymore. There's trouble. I have to stop it.**  
  
All this time he'd envied his old-self, and hated his life, hated being trapped in high school, trapped in a place he didn't belong. All this time, he'd been sitting on the bench, permanently red-shirted out of his life.  
  
So was she.  
  
And now, here she is, offering him a new missing, a new purpose. Offering him the Stargate.  
  
It's insane, thinking a couple of teenagers could build a Stargate and go through it.  
  
But Jack figures neither of them are really teenagers, that they've gone so far past being normal or teenagers that it doesn't matter if their ages haven't caught up.

It's this or stay on Earth and malinger through their lives with the added bonus of being completely unable to pretend there wasn't another way.  
  
He has to do it. Even if it means trusting Amy blindly.  
  
The mute leading the blind.  
  
So what if he's blind, he figures. She's got the vision to take them both where they need to be. And if there's a wormhole involved, well, it won't be his first.

So, they decided to do it.

It wasn't a hard decision, once all the secrets had come spilling out.

Amy dreamed dreams every night, kept adding addresses and other things to the growing rag tag folder full of information about the Stargate.

Everyday he thought about calling the SGC and turning it all over. Everyday, he didn't, because every time he went through it, a list started forming in his head. A list of what needed to be done.

It was like a briefing almost, having Daniel or Carter lay out their idea and Jack thinking to himself how he could make it happen.

A real, honest-to-god mission. Illegal, off the books, likely to fail miserably, but that also describes quite a big chunk of his former career, so on balance, it's not so bad.

The first issue is money. Jack considers getting a job, but a part-time minimum wage will not bankroll a Stargate. Jack starts selling things off on E-Bay. Clothes, furniture, his toaster. Anything to bring in money. Amy starts selling jewelry and some of her old clothes and stuffed animals. But never enough to make her parents notice.

Jack's apartment slowly becomes empty. He has no toaster, no dishes, the guest bedroom is completely emptied out. The bed, the dresser, everything. Gone. But that's fifteen hundred dollars they've got.

In three weeks, they've scraped together enough money so they can buy most of the smaller parts that they need.

They build what they can outside, but some pieces are big and have to be put together outside and then covered. So they build in the woods that stretch out for about a mile behind Jack's apartment.

After a while there are chunks of a stargate, of conductors and wires, metal boxes scattered all over the woods like a plane wreck.

Eventually, Jack gets bold enough and uses his old identity to apply for a credit card. He gets a gold card with an unlimited balance and orders like crazy. It's amazing what a person can do with a gold card and a crazy idea. Sure, his otherself is going to have horrible credit when all is said and done, but hey, it's for the good of the human race.

Jack tries not to let on that it amuses him as much as it does.

They both, however, have to be careful not to act differently. It's so easy to let their homework slide, because they know it won't matter. They're above and beyond the system. They're exempt from life.

They can fail school, rob a bank, anything. Because in a few weeks, if all goes well, they're going to be millions and millions of miles away.

Only, Jack's done this too long to think that there's not going to be consequences. Complications. He's doing it and every day doesn't believe how far they've gotten.

Eventually, the complications come.

It's Tuesday. He goes to pick Amy up and she's no where to be found. It's snowing furiously, and he thinks maybe she stayed inside. So he parks in the fire lane and goes looking for her.

He searches down by the special-ed classes.

It's 3:55 type quiet, so quiet that he jumps when he hears something shatter inside the girl's bathroom. He doesn't even stop to ask himself if he should go on.

That's where he finds her, staring at the shattered mirror with the silver pieces in the sink and all over the floor. The look on her face, with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging tells him she might well have left the building, that maybe nobody's behind the wheel, the lights are on, but Amy's on vacation, gone fishing, out to lunch. The king has left the building, folks.

"Amy?"

She turns to look at him. And she's wearing that same shell-shocked expression. Yeah, there's definitely a vacancy in Amy's head.

"What happened?"

Amy starts to back away. Jack doesn't understand. Amy backs up until she runs into the wall and sinks down. She covers her ears and rocks back and forth frantically. She's mouthing something, but going to fast for Jack to read her lips.

"Amy?"

She closes her eyes. Jack steps over the broken glass and stands over her.

"Amy, I don't know what's going on, and it's kind of obvious you can't talk about it right now, but I think we need to go. Okay?"

Amy nods, picks herself up and they leave. On the ride there, Amy sits in the front seat of Jack's truck, just staring. She looks catatonic.

Suddenly, she covers her eyes. Then she scrambles around the cab of the truck, opening the glovebox, checking the cupholders on the console. Looking for something. She reaches back and sees Jack's backpack. She grabs it clumsily and takes out the first notepad she can find and the first pencil.

She starts writing frantically. So much so that she uses the last of the pencil lead and gets a pen and keeps going. She's three pages into writing by the time they get to the apartment.

Amy doesn't quit writing for a couple of hours. She uses up an entire subject in Jack's notebook and when she quits, it's like she's finished some kind of masterpiece. She stares down at it and has her head in her hands.

Jack sits next to her. He turns the notebook to a clean page in the next section and puts then pen on top of it.

"Start from the beginning. Take your time."

Amy nods and picks up the pen again.

**Virus made me different. Made me like them. I broke the mirror but didn't touch it. **

"Egar and Woden," Jack murmurs. Amy looks at him with a question in her expression. "On a mission, this Goa'uld, Nurty, she was trying to create superior human or hockers, hockeyters or something like that. They were telepathic, telekinetic."

Amy nods and scrubs her face. **Tired. Stuck on the Stargate. We need help.**

"I was thinking the same thing, actually," Jack says. "I'll take you home. You need rest, kiddo."

**No. I can do this.**

"It's been a rough day. We both need a break."

**Please don't give up. Need you to do this.**

"We're not giving up. We're taking a break so we don't have to."

Amy relents. She gets her coat and is dragging back to Jack's truck. Once he's back home, Jack stares at the phone.

The thought of talking to himself, talking to the bastard who's walking around wearing his body and doing his job bites at him. The bastard who's got not one tiny shred of sympathy, because of course, god forbid anyone should be an affront to his existence.

And he sits down on his futon/sofa which the replacement for the leather couch he used to have. He stares at the words Amy wrote. He's got a whole notebook full of her words. He can store their conversations any time he likes. Open it up and there's Amy, even when she's gone.

It takes two days to screw his courage together, but on the second day, when he looks at that page, still staring up at him because he can't take his notebook to school, he decides it's not worth wasting everything Amy's been through.

He sighs and picks up the phone and calls his otherself.

He's a little amazed that he's actually at his desk.  
  
"General O'Neill speaking."  
  
"General O'Neill. Hmm. Has a nice ring," Jack taunts his otherself.  
  
"Mini-me?"  
  
"Jack actually. Jack O'Neil. One 'L'. There's another one, with two L's. He's kind of a shrug. Just pretend I'm another person named Jack."  
  
"Is there something wrong? You're not in jail are you?"  
  
"No, just high school. Look, I just need someone to give me a number where I can reach Major Davis."  
  
"Why would you need to talk to Davis, if you don't mind me asking?"  
  
"I do mind and none of your damn business. Either you give me the number or you don't. In which case I'll be forced to call Carter. You know she thinks I'm cute, right? And hey, no regs. Wonder how she feels about younger men, although technically I'm not. But you know, there's something to be said for stamina."  
  
"All right, jesus! Could you please not talk about _Colonel_ Carter like that?"  
  
"Whatever. Are you gonna give me the number or not?"  
  
"Fine. Let me find it."  
  
A few moments of indiscriminate grunting later, Jack listens as his other self scrolls off the number of both Major Davis's cellphone, home number, and work number with the caveat, "I don't know what you think he's going to be able to do for you. They've got him babysitting physicists right now. It's not like they're letting him do anything important."  
  
"Exactly," Jack says, smiling smugly wishing that he could see the look on other-Jack's face. "Oh, and uh, say hi to T and Daniel for me."  
  
He hangs up and waits until after office hours to call Paul, who is fascinated with the idea of talking to Jack O'Neill's 16-year-old otherself.  
  
"I'd heard what happened, but wow. Sir, this is..."  
  
"Weird, I get it. I heard they have you babysitting physicists right now."  
  
"After what happened with Prometheus and the meeting with the Asgard, they decided I needed to be transferred. I'm still the liaison, I'm just doing a lot less with the SGC and a lot more with the Pentagon. Another year of this and I'll be ready to retire."  
  
Jack looks up to the ceiling and mouths 'thank you!', because there's no way it's all coincidence, that everything is falling so perfectly into their laps for no reason.  
  
The Stargate wants them. It can't be anything but that. The Stargate wants them, the universe wants them and it's laying down a lovely little yellow brick road to lead them out.  
  
"Interesting you should mention that, Major. Because I might have a chance for you to do something you've always wanted."  
  
"Be on SG-1?"  
  
"Something like it."  
  
"Sir, no offense, but last I heard you were working towards a high school diploma."  
  
"Consider it my day job."  
  
"And your night job?"  
  
"You're either in now or you're not. You squeal and it's over. First, it's not illegal – technically, and secondly, it's for the good of the planet. So, can I trust you?"

"You realize what you're suggesting to me, sir. Over the phone?"

"I wouldn't come out into the open like this unless I had something big and I was really, really desperate. I'm saving the planet here, Paul."

"We're talking about my job, my life. Why would I do this?"

"Fine, spend the rest of your career watching other people go through the Stargate while you shuffle papers and supervise scientists. You know what it's like out there. You can't tell me you didn't want to do it again."

"Well, sticking with my current job seems to be a better route."

"You really think you're ever going to get through the 'gate at the SGC again? I'm telling you that you've got options, if you're willing make some sacrifices."

Jack hears him sigh, hears the phone rattle.  
  
"You have my word, sir."  
  
"I know someone who's building a Stargate as we speak."  
  
"My god. You're talking about an illegally run Stargate program?"  
  
"Last I checked, there weren't any laws forbidding a completely independent private citizen from running and operating a Stargate program."  
  
"If you're talking about the Trust?"  
  
"The Trust? What? Who the hell are they?"

"Figures you wouldn't know. Let's just say they're a group of very rich private business owners looking to get control of the SGC."

"That's not us. Right now, a grand total of three people on Earth know about it. We're at a stand still, and we need someone with know-how."  
  
"Sir, I don't think my knowledge is anywhere great enough to assist in building a Stargate."  
  
"No offense, but right now, we don't exactly want you for your brains. You're not an expert on the gate, but you probably know someone who is. I'm thinking that you could get Dr. McKay. If Carter's number one in the field, he's number two right?"  
  
"Rodney McKay? Sir, he'd never do it. Right now, the government is watching every move he makes. Plus, he's being used for a number of projects. There's talk of moving him to the SGC to work with Colonel Carter."  
  
"Damn."  
  
"Here's an idea. Right now, Jennifer Hailey's stuck doing theory, and she's not happy about it."  
  
"Jennifer Hailey?"  
  
"You did say..."  
  
"I know. Fine. You think she be trusted."  
  
"Yes. I've worked with her a lot lately. She'd be head of the list, but believe it or not, she's actually less tactful than Dr. McKay. Fortunately, her heart's in the right place. Even if her mouth isn't."  
  
"Spoken like a man who's worked with her. You two get on the next flight out here."  
  
"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."  
  
"Neither did I at first."  
  
"Just out of curiosity, what is it we're going through the stargate for?"  
  
"To find what the SGC can't, Major."  
  
"Well, that was cryptic."  
  
"I was taking lessons from Teal'c before I got cloned."  
  
"The next flight available arrives in Colorado Springs at 4:30 am Thursday, can you meet us?"  
  
"Sure."

--------

The next afternoon, Jack picks Amy up and tells her the news. She's rather happy about it, and looks anxious the entire way to the airport.

"I've known Major Davis for years. He's a good guy. Hailey's a little...umm...well, she's kind of a bitch, really. She doesn't mean it. It's a personality flaw. She's a scientist," Jack explains.

Amy smiles and straightens her hair in the visor mirror.

When they get to the airport, Hailey looks shocked enough to see the former gray-haired Colonel that barked at them all through training as a gangly, coltishly built sixteen year old, with another teenager in tow.

"Bring your girlfriend, sir?" asks Hailey, trying not to laugh, putting a magazine from the plane in front of her face. "This is a joke."

Hailey turns to leave and Paul Davis catches her arm.

"It's not a joke."

"I'm not going to explain in a crowded airport," Jack tells her, in the exact same tone he would have used if he were standing in front of a line of trainees, ready to fail the whole lot of them.

They get out to the parking garage, on the top floor where there's hardly anyone. Jack looks around suspiciously.

"Show 'em," he says to Amy and jerks his head in her direction.

Amy closes her eyes, takes a breath, and the luggage is floating mid-air.

"Jennifer Hailey, Paul Davis, I'd like you to meet Amy Siler," Jack says, with no small amount of pride in his voice.


	3. The Cohesive Properties of Inertia

**3. The Cohesive Properties of Inertia**

With Jennifer and Paul in Colorado Springs for two weeks on some excuse involving budgets and scientists, the progress on the new 'gate has gone a lot faster. It also helps that every day they both get to go right into the SGC and look at the real thing.

Still, the push to finish it before time runs out has taken a lot out of both Jack and Amy.

Amy goes home every day, exhausted down to the bone. She's letting her grades slide, Jack's completely quit doing homework all together and skips every other day.

Jennifer and Paul don't even stay at the hotel. They sleep at Jack's place on sleeping bags. Sometimes they work until late in the night. Mostly he and Paul do, in the wee morning hours. They go out in the woods and work with just flashlights do the grunt work of putting the gate together where Jennifer and Amy have laid out plans and given them instructions.

Three days before the new 'gate is finished, they're working on putting together the inner ring. It's a tedious process, keeping the symbols in order, fitting them together and making sure they fit with the outer track.

Jennifer looks up from where she's connecting two pieces of the outer track together and asks, "Is Amy coming with us?"

Jack blinks. "Whuh?"

"I asked, is she coming with us, sir?"

"You mean through the Stargate?"

"Yes! Are you seriously contemplating taking a mute teenager through the Stargate to go looking for the Furlings and fight the Wraith, whatever they are?"

Jack sits back on his heels. "If it wasn't for Amy none of us would be doing this. She's the reason we're even going to have a 'gate."

"She's got a point, Jack," Paul says, carefully laying down the symbol for taurus. "It's a dangerous universe out there. You really think she's ready?"

"If I can teach a bunch of Abydonian kids to fight a god, I can teach her. Maybe she's mute, but she's also telekinetic. And she's got a bunch of Ancient knowledge floatin' around in her head. If we don't take her, there's no point in doing this. Because last I checked, none of the rest of us know where the hell the Furlings are hanging out."

"I'm not insulting her, sir, but you shouldn't put her in danger just because you feel sorry for her."

Jack stands up quickly. He's breathing kind of hard, from the work, the cold, and just his own emotions.

"I don't feel sorry for her," he answers. "Look, if we go into this doubting each other and questioning whether we should be here, then we're takin' the short bus through the 'gate. You knew what you were getting into here, Hailey. And if you've got doubts about whether Amy can hack it, then you tell Amy that. Me? I wouldn't have picked her or you two unless I thought it was going to work. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

It's a late Thursday afternoon – two days before Paul and Jennifer are due back in Washington - when the new 'gate gets completed, when Paul - and god Jack's had such a hard time not calling him Major or Davis or Major Davis - and Jack drag the final pieces into the clearing and use Jack's truck to set it upright.

The thing is huge, and Jack still thinks that Jennifer - again, trying not to call her Hailey or Lieutenant (even though she's a captain) - and her plans to use something like a force shield – using Amy's knowledge – to dampen the seismic tremors are going to fail. That SG-1 and his Otherself are going to show up any minute and completely ruin it all.

"We did it," Jennifer declares, staring at the gate in the setting sunlight. "We actually did it."

She smiles like she never once questioned it. Sure, Jack could remind her that she's bitched, moaned, and doubted everything the entire way, but why spoil the moment?

"So what now?" asks Jack, staring at it.

"We need supplies, equipment - a MALP!" Paul says, sitting down on the lowered tailgate of the truck.

"Well, we can't exactly ask the SGC for a spare MALP," Jack answers, sitting next to him.

"No, but we can ask the Kelownans," Paul replies. "Jonas."

Jack cringes at the idea, of looking at Jonas's baby face with even younger eyes. That Jonas, who once did everything he could to get Jack's approval, might laugh and suddenly realize how silly it had been.

Shame, maybe. To admit that he's sunk this far, that he's giving the NID a run for every dollar they're worth, and that he hasn't even thought about turning back. That he really can't live his life twice.

Shame that he can't turn back when he promised he would.

"No. We can go somewhere else. The Asgard owe me one."

"Sir," Jennifer says, crossing her arms, "I can't speak to why you're being hesitant, but we've all broken quite a few laws already. We just built a stargate and now we need Jonas to make it all worth something. So whatever it is that's holding you back, get over it. I didn't just throw away a career for you to get gun shy."

"A career in Carter's shadow," he shoots back. He used to try to tell himself the hormones really didn't affect him, but there are moments when for all his reason, he gives in. It's not that his self control is weaker, it's that his ability to use self control is faulty. Like sometimes the signals don't get to the right places to tell himself to tell his mouth not to make the sounds.

"At least I'm not going back for my second high school diploma," Jennifer retorts.

"Enough!" Paul shouts. "both of you. tomorrow we get what we need and head to Kelowna. if Jonas helps us, we find a planet suitable to build a base. If not, we come back here and destroy the stargate and never speak of it again. But neither of those two plans entails you two sniping at each other. I realize you're both very young, but neither of you are stupid. So if you can't say something nice or useful, please for the love of god don't open your mouths."

Amy snaps her fingers and holds up a piece of paper with the words **Me too?** scrawled in permanent blue ink.

Jack snorts, and even Paul and Jennifer can't resist a smile. Amy folds the paper and covers up her wide smile.

Nobody sleeps the night before. They all stay awake, eating ice cream to celebrate and trashing the apartment as quietly as possible. When the apartment is thoroughly trashed and everyone's packed up for the next day, they rest against their rolled up sleeping bags and bask and talk the way Jack used to talk with SG-1, on those quiet missions in the night when none of them felt all that tired.

The lights are out, only the streetlights interrupt the darkness.

"Jonas is a good guy, you'll like working with him," Jack says.

"A little headstrong as I remember," Paul reminds him.

"Eh, he grew out of it. He really was a decent guy."

"But he wasn't Dr. Jackson," Hailey challenges him just by the tone of her voice and the implication of her words. Jack wonders if two weeks from now, they'll be fighting over command. If, in this sixteen year old body, that Hailey might be able to really threaten him.

"Obviously," Jack replies. One of the advantages of being sixteen is the frequent excuses for being rudely sarcastic.

"You two," Paul groans. "This is what I get for disobeying the air force."

"So what did he say to get you here anyway, Hailey?" Jack asks her, turning his head to stare in her direction even though he can only see a one tiny sliver of an outline of her face because of the darkness.

"Just the truth," Hailey answers him sounding very thoughtful and quieter than he's ever heard her.

"Which one, there's a lot of versions runnin' around out there," Jack asks.

"Permission to speak freely."

Paul snorts and rubs his face. He's laughing. "We're about to commit treason and you're asking permission to speak freely? Wow. And they say I'm wound up."

"It's one of the things that I like about the military. It's not like politics. You know when you can speak and when you can't. You can ask permission, you can clarify things."

Jack thinks about it. It's not a bad reason. "Okay. Well then, I, Jack O'Neil. One 'l', being sixteen and maybe commander of this very illegal mission grant you permission to talk shit about anyone you like."

"I'm not going to lie. I'm a damn good scientist. I'm a hell of a lot better than Dr. McKay, and I know that I can stand toe to toe with Colonel Carter. But she got there first, sirs. There's nothing left to do, nothing important. Maybe I revise a few of her theories or prove that she reversed a fraction or two in one of her equations. But really, there's nothing left. From here on out, physics is all about who's second best compared to her. I didn't bust my ass to be second to anybody. Not even her."

"Umm, Hailey. Maybe we didn't explain the illegal part of this whole thing. We're not going to be heroes."

"But we could be the best. That's all that matters. If we find the Furlings, if we find a new way to defend Earth, if we do something the SGC can't, then that proves it. We were the best."

Jack whistles into the darkness. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to prove something."

"Hell yes. Sir."

Paul and Jack laugh again.

"Permission to speak freely." Jack raises his hand even though nobody can see it. One and a half semesters of school has truly rewired his brain.

"Granted," Hailey drolls.

"Are we going to keep calling each other sir?"

"If we want, I guess."

"We'll grow out of it," Paul says. "Think Jonas will go along with it?"

"Sure. Why not. He can't be any happier on Kelowna, dicking around with politicians all day."

"Is he cute?" Hailey inquires. Jack and Paul turns their heads towards her. Hailey smiles. "What?"

Jack says very, very seriously, "Yes, Hailey. He's a total babe."

They all laugh hysterically.

Then Paul asks, "Do you miss them?"

Jack stops laughing and stares up. "Does it matter?"

"I think it does," Hailey says.

"Yes, I miss them. Satisfied? But they're not my team anymore. This is my team now."

"We're a team," Paul contemplates.

"I see you're getting all your memos there, Davis."

"We should have a name," Hailey says.

"What? Like 'the Gaters' or something?" Davis asks.

They start laughing again.

"Worst. Name. Ever, sir."

Jack picks Amy up in the morning and they wait down the street until her mother leaves. Then they go back, pack her things, and take her back to the apartment.

Paul and Jennifer have donuts and coffee for everyone. Orange juice for Amy, because Paul wasn't sure if she was old enough to appreciate coffee.

Amy smiles at him and drinks her coffee black. He boggles for a moment, but the moment doesn't last long.

"I guess that's your way of saying 'don't underestimate me'," Paul says to her, sitting beside her on the futon. Jack and Jennifer are making a last sweep of the apartment. "Funny, we've spent the last two weeks building a Stargate together and I don't know that much about you."

Amy takes out a pen from her pocket and writes on her notebook: **You will learn soon.**

They turn out the lights in the apartment and walk silently out to the Stargate.

They have to wait ten minutes to make sure that the Stargate in the SGC isn't running, because SG-12 was due back twenty minutes ago, but they agreed to give it a half-hour just in case some post-mission hinkiness went down and the SGC needed to keep the gate open or re-dial.

Amy gets to do the honors of pressing the remote and getting the spinners going. The gate is preset to redial Kelowna.

The gate lights up as a bright event horizon shimmers in front of them.

Jack stands in front of the gate. "This is your ex-colonel speaking. We're gonna have a great wormhole today folks. Find your wormhole buddy. Does everyone have your wormhole buddy?" Paul smiles and elbows Amy. She smiles back and crosses her arms. "All right. Exhale your last breath, keep walking, and hold on to your natchoes, 'cause we're goin' to Kelowna."

With a triumphant crow, Jack stands aside. Jennifer and Paul walk through.

Amy stands in front of the wormhole and touches it.

"This is it. This what you wanted," Jack whispers to her. He puts a hand around her arm. "This is the easy part. Piece of cake."

Jack presses the timer for the small charges that are in the trees and steps through. He still has Amy by the arm.

Once the gate shuts down, the trap goes into place. Small, timed charges blow and the gate falls over flat and is covered by leaves and tree branches. It's small enough so that it gets disguised by the debris.

To the outside viewer, it looks and sounds like a tree fell and nothing more. Only, nobody's there to hear it.

Jonas doesn't really get what the technician means when he says the signal is coming from Earth but not the SGC.

Because the only 'gate on Earth is at the SGC.

So he chocks it all up to Teranian incompetence and goes running.

By the time he gets there, the only person he recognizes standing by the Stargate is Major Davis.

"Major Davis?" he asks, taking only a few steps closer. he steps slowly.

"We need to speak with you, Jonas, in private," Davis says. "We're unarmed."

"General Hammond didn't send any messages through telling us you were coming."

"That's because we don't work for the SGC, not anymore," Davis says.

"Has there been a civil war on Earth? Have the Goa'uld attacked?"

"No, Earth is safe and sound. For the time being," says Jack.

"Who are these people?" asks Jonas

"That's Captain Jennifer Hailey, this is Amy Siler, and I'm mini-me," says Jack. "Can we go somewhere private?"

Jonas shakes his head as though trying to clear something out. "Yeah. Sure. This way."

They sit in his office. Captain Hailey leans on a table and the two teenagers stand next to each other.

Major Davis starts talking. By the time he quits, Hailey is sitting. One of the teenagers is quietly standing by his desk and the other is apparently the botched clone of Jack O'Neill.

Jonas doesn't speak. He sputters. He coughs. He walks around.

It isn't disbelief. In fact, the opposite. Jonas needs, more than anything, to believe that Major Davis, Captain Hailey, this girl - Amy Siler - and the strange smaller version of Colonel O'Neill have come to him in earnest.

Kelowna is his desert, and Jonas can't decide if this is his oasis, or his cruel mirage.

"Jonas," says smaller-Jack, "I can understand why you wouldn't want to do this. In fact, I can think of a hundred reasons why you probably won't help us."

"Then why did you come to me?"

"Because of I can think of a thousand reason why you will. Not least of all being that you're a good man. And you know that we need you on this, and you know how important it is."

"Then why not tell the SGC what you know? They're the ones best equipped to handle this. Why do _this_?" Jonas asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. he scrubs through his newly shorn hair.

Softly, Amy touches Jack's arm. He leans back.

Amy takes the notepad from around her neck and writes:

**Mr. Jonas, the SGC can't do this. They are not free. We are. You are. Only us.**

She takes the notebook from around her neck and gives it to him. He contemplates the words on the page.

"You really can't speak, can you?" Jonas asks, narrowing his eyes at Amy. Amy nods her head. Jonas hands her back the notebook and she puts the long dogtag chain around her neck again.

Jonas looks around the room and the door is closed behind him. He faces the four people in front of him, and the door behind them is open.

He does not believe in gods or signs, but he likes to think of this as some strange mental cue.

"I'll go," he says. "I've got access to the armory. I can probably create an excuse to get most of what we need. But if I do this, we can't come back, ever. I'll be a traitor and you'll be enemies of the state."

"Works for me." Jack nods and smiles.

The first time that Jack doesn't answer the phone, Siler doesn't worry. After all, they're probably playing music really loud or maybe they're even not in the apartment. Every once and a while, he's gone to pick Amy up and found them in the laundry room, Amy sitting on one of the driers, quizzing Jack with flash cards or poking him with a broom.

So, he waits. He calls Jack's cellphone. Leaves two messages. Waits twenty minutes.

Then he calls the school, just to make sure that Amy isn't there for some school thing that he forgot about. Because he's forgotten about quite a few in the past.

The school says Amy never showed up.

Then Siler decides to skip worrying and go straight to panic. SG-1 and Siler are in Jack's apartment thirty minutes later.

The place looks barren. All the furniture is gone, save an obviously second-hand futon and a microwave. There isn't a coffee table, only a ragged fold out table with odd wires and half-empty coffee cups and an empty box of donuts on it. The kitchen table is covered by papers, coffee mugs, plastic bottles of high-caffeine soda, and there are three rolled up sleeping bags near the wall.

Otherwise, the house is barren. The guest bedroom is empty. The pictures have been taken off the wall. No clothes are left in the drawers.

There are few items to testify to the fact that a human being was even there. There aren't even dishes, just rewashed plastic cups and styrofoam plates.

They fan out through out the apartment. Teal'c and Sam check the kitchen. Siler and Jack stand in the living room. Daniel goes to the back bedroom, which was Jack's. It's is the same as the rest of the house. The bed is there, with only the mattress. The dressers are left with only a few clothes. An odd sweater here or a ragged tee-shirt there.

Daniel opens the nightstand drawer and there's a softcore porn magazine, condoms, lube, a gun, and on top of that an envelope addressed to him.

Only, his name is spelled out in phonetic Ancient.

"Guys!" he calls.

Siler, Teal'c, Sam, and Jack come to the back bedroom.

"It's addressed to me," he says, holding up the envelope. "In Ancient. Found it next to the condoms and the gun."

Jack blinks. "Okay, the condoms I get. But how the hell did I - he - whoever - how the hell did a sixteen-year-old get a gun?" Jack demands to know. "And what's with the envelope."

"I don't know, why don't I try reading it?" Daniel suggests, not quite smiling at Jack. He carefully opens the letter and scans the page. "It's not from duplicate O'Neill."

"I though we were gonna give him a better name," Jack says with a frown on his face. "Who's it from?"

"Amy," Daniel says, staring at the first page.

"How do you know?" Sam asks him.

"She signed her name, in English," Daniel says, holding up the page so they can see Amy's giant signature in blue ink at the bottom.

"What's it say?" Siler asks, stepping forward.

Daniel sits on the bed. "Umm, okay, it says: Dear Dr. Jackson, General O'Neill, and dad. I wrote this in Ancient so only the right people could read it. I'm sorry if some of it is wrong, but sometimes the words in my head don't make sense.

"Jack says that you can read Ancient, Dr. Jackson, because you used to be one. So I'm trusting you to tell them what I've said, truthfully. You have to make my family understand this. Jack told me about your Ascension. So you can make him understand that I have to do this, and why. Jack said you could make him believe, he said you could make anyone believe.

"Don't get mad at Jack, because this was all my idea. I knew most things, but he told me the rest because I made him. I know what I know because of the sickness that I had. The sickness did something to me. I'm different now, and because I'm different I can't stay. I know things now, I can do things. One day, I'll tell you what I know, but not until it's time.

"I love you daddy so much and I'm very sorry. Tell mom and Matt and Ryan that I love them too. You were the best family anyone could ever have and I'll miss you every day. But I have to do this, because you taught me right from wrong. This is the only thing that will ever be right.

Tell General O'Neill that we haven't put anyone at risk doing this, that Jack made sure everything was taken care of, and that Paul and Jennifer's resignations are in the mail. We will return, although we're not sure when. When we do, we'll make sure that you know everything.

I can't tell you where we're going or what our plans are, because I know that you'd all try to stop us. You're good people that way. But this is the only thing that's right. I believe that in my heart and in my mind and when it comes down to it, I think that's all anyone has to go by. Thank You and All My Love To My Family, Amy Anne Siler."

For all that it's worth, they file a missing persons report on both duplicate O'Neill and Amy.

Siler goes home to tell his wife and sons what's happened, and without mentioning the Stargate, tries to explain to them how they lost Amy. When he trudges to bed, holding his crying wife, he isn't sure he even believes it.

But it doesn't matter. Broken bones, broken family. It's just a matter of getting up again.

Siler knows better than anyone that pain fades.

He leaves his wife lying awake in the bed, too depressed to get up. He makes breakfast, brushes his teeth, goes through the routines and clocks into work the next morning. Injuries always heal faster if you keep moving.

SG-1 tries to track down the frazzled ends of duplicate O'Neill and Amy's trail, for what it's worth. They find duplicate O'Neill's truck in the parking lot. The rental car that Captain Hailey and Major Davis were using is found at the airport. Their hotel room is in pristine condition, the maid says she never had to clean it.

The next day the respective resignations of Major Paul Davis and Captain Jennifer Hailey arrive on General O'Neill's desk. And a few hours after the mail arrives, a transmission comes in from the Langarans. A good portion of the goods acquired in trade with Earth are gone. This includes eight handguns, four zat'nik'atels, a staff weapon, and four P-90's, not to mention a large load of ordinance. Also, a large container of naquadria and two naquadah reactors are missing. Not to mention food, medical supplies, and assorted gear. They also cannot find Jonas Quinn.

The deception was ingenious. Trading old supplies back to Earth in exchange for new ones. Signatures had been forged. Transmissions doctored using Jonas's laptop.

The Langarans have been had, even if they realize it almost a day and a half too late.

They demand to know if Earth had anything to do with it. Jack, Daniel, and Carter all take their turns reassuring the Langarans that they're just as surprised. That such a trade would never have been approved.

After all the diplomatic feathers are calmed down, Jack sits at his desk and stares at the typed out translation of Amy Siler's note.

"It can't be coincidence," Sam remarks to him, standing in the doorway to Jack's office.

"Maybe. Jonas did steal naquadria for us. It's not like he's not capable of it."

"What else could it be, sir?"

"How could they coordinate with Jonas? The only Stargate on this planet is here, in this base, and we've checked everything. Nothing. No ships in orbit. Nothing. If there were, god forbid, another Stargate, we'd know. Because you can't run to concurrent Stargate programs. We've been over this with the Russians."

"Somehow, there's a link. Amy said in the note that she knew things we didn't. And we know that Jonas wouldn't steal naquadria and take off without a good reason. I think we can assume the two events are connected. Are you going to tell Sergeant Siler?"

"Why?" Jack asks her, turning in his spinning chair. "What good is it going to do to tell him we think his only daughter is on another planet with my clone, two ex-USAF officers and a hyperobservant Kelownan who's packin' naquadria? There's no way to prove anything. I think at this point, it's more trouble than it's worth. When we know something, we'll tell him."

Sam shrugs. "I can't believe you'd do this, sir."

"You think giving him another reason to panic is going to help?"

"No, I meant duplicate O'Neill. He may be sixteen, but he's still essentially you. I can't believe he'd do this."

Jack shrugs. "Hey, you didn't know me when I was sixteen."

"Obviously nobody did."

They arrive to find a cloudy sky and a flat green meadow that stretches out so far it's like the sea. A sea of green.

"So, PX6-771," Davis says, looking around.

"Think the SGC'll be able to find us here?" Jonas asks.

"We 'gated to three different planets before coming here," Hailey answers him. "They don't even have it listed in the dialing computer. 771 wasn't on the Abydos cartouche or any of the addresses from when General O'Neill had the Ancient repository in his brain. If they find us here, they deserve to."

"I thought we were gonna give it a better name," Jack says, putting his pack onto their stolen MALP. "We can't just call it 771."

Amy taps his shoulder. Her notebook is open.

**"Home" maybe?**

**THE END**

* * *

_Author's Note_: Continued in the sequel "Perfect Storms" 


End file.
